


Strange Friends

by kidotomy



Series: Uzumaki Red [3]
Category: Naruto
Genre: Alcohol, F/F, this is more pre-relationship than anything
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-28
Updated: 2019-05-28
Packaged: 2020-03-20 19:05:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,364
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18998686
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kidotomy/pseuds/kidotomy
Summary: If she wasn't in love with Sasuke, did she know was love was, or how to see it?Sakura starring in 'drunk introspections with Karin.'





	Strange Friends

**Author's Note:**

> This is technically part of my series, but can be read completely independently.

Sakura opened her door to the last sight she expected—Karin wagging a bottle of shochu and asking to come in.

"Um, sure." She stepped away from the door.

It's not like she didn't know Karin, the other girl had picked up working at the hospital since she unofficially settled in Konoha; but they were _not_ friends.

Karin patted her back on the way in, dumping herself into a stool by the counter, the alcohol clinking on the granite.

"Yeeeesh, Sakura, you look so stiff. Cmon, you got a chaser?" The redhead grinned,waving Sakura over.

"Oh, right. Of course!" Sakura moved awkwardly, reaching into the fridge to pull out a soda, which was cause for Karin to flick open the cap of the shochu, take a shot and shiver, not even bothering with the soda. Sakura stood by awkwardly, her hands clasped in front of her like she was waiting for a task.

"Relax. I'm not here to visit polite-Sakura, just sit. Drink. I never thanked you for saving my life, you know? We have mutual… friends, and we work together. Cmon." She shook the bottle.

Sakura's smile was strained to say the least, and the memory Karin brought up wasn't at all pleasant, if anything it only reminded Sakura how much she hated Karin in that moment—to see her enemy cry so sadly. She clutched the hem of her shirt before, oh hell. She grabbed the bottle, taking a swig of the shochu and chasing it with the raspberry soda before the alcohol could bite too hard. She didn't even like shochu.

Karin forged forward anyway, grabbing Sakura's hand in hers. "Good, good! You're always so tense. I can tell you're boiling up under there."

Sakura sighed, slipping into the seat beside Karin, glad her parents wouldn't be home anytime soon at least. She slumped forward.

"Is it that obvious? Naruto asked to me 'look after Konoha while he was gone," She slid a glass towards herself, tipping the contents of the bottle into it. "He should've just stayed and done it himself. Working at the hospital and taking care of Kakashi-sensei is so draining. I might as well be the kage, with how little he does himself." She swirled the glass before taking another drink.

"Well, maybe you will be!"

"Me? No way That's not even—That's Naruto's dream, not mine."

"But he's not here, is he? You are. You're more than capable too. I'm just saying."

Sakura laughed awkwardly.

"Thanks, Karin."

Karin hummed, deciding to let it go. She got her own glass to drink from, though she pointedly ignored the soda she'd technically asked for (which, yes, irked Sakura just a bit.)

They fell into casual conversation, mostly about the hospital and interesting patients—dispensing gorey details to one another that civilians would certainly balk at. Sakura found herself smiling more than she thought she would, more comfortable in Karin's presence than she thought she could be. Karin moved to put a hand on Sakura's shoulder, smiling slyly.

"How do you think _they're_ doing, anyway?" Karin asked eventually, seemingly out of left-field. 

Sakura's forced smile didn't reach her eyes at all, and she looked down at the counter. Of course she knew who Karin was referring to. 

"Good, I think. Great, maybe? I've only gotten one message from Naruto, but I could tell he's happy. And if he's happy then… Sasuke probably is too." Her fingers were tapping her forearm now, the look in her eyes distant. "I'm always being left-behind."

Karin sipped her drink, remarking to herself that Team 7 as a whole seemed mighty fucked up—like, _really emo._ But she wouldn't be patronizing about it to the poor girl's face, especially not right now. She sighed.

"You really like Sasuke, don't you?"

Sakura gripped her arm now, tensing.

The heat settling in her stomach reminded her of how the lines between Inner and herself seemed to blur when she drank. She'd make an effort to push her back, because punching a hole in her house wasn't a great way to express herself.

"I don't know."

"You don't know?"

Sakura's eyes lidded, slumping over on the counter. The alcohol was starting to buzz.

"I was, like, twelve. I didn't really know him. Actually, he was a jerk. To everyone."

Karin thinks about the picture of Team 7 she saw in Naruto's apartment and hums quietly, genuinely interested now.

"Sometimes, I want to be really mad at myself for how much I catered to him. I know he never cared about me." She noticed Karin's hands fiddling with something beside her, but kept her eyes trained hazily on her glass, huffing. "I've thought about swearing off men all together."

Head tilted into her hand, Karin snorted, and put on her most charming smile.

"What about women?"

The effect was immediate, Sakura's focus snapping towards the other kunoichi, shock and blush evident on her face as her eyes snapped to and away from Karin's unbuttoned blouse.

"Ah—um."

Karin cackled, grabbing Sakura in a crushing hug while she laughed.

"I'm just kidding Sakura-chan! You're so cute! So cute!"

The pink-haired girl squirmed, embarrassed out of her mind and overheating. When she broke free, Karin was still smiling—face red from drinking. So she was a lightweight.

"Ah, whatever!" Sakura pouted, hiding her face from Karin with her hands while she searched her mind for a topic breaker.

"Wh—what's it like being part of a clan?" She settled on, still rosey but looking Karin in the face now.

"I wouldn't know." The redhead smiled, without a trace of grief.

"What? I thought you were from the same clan as Naruto? Aren't you?"

"Yes, but I was raised in Kusagakure. The Uzumaki were wiped out, along with all of Uzushigakure because their strength was feared. I only knew my mother."

"Wow that's…"

Karin smirked. "Just like the Uchiha, right?"

"Couldn't you have used that to get closer to Sasuke?"

She laughed. "Wow, use? You have some scary ideas about love, Sakura-chan. I guess you did say you didn't really like him."

Embarrassed again, Sakura frowned. "Sorry, I guess it's always been like that, since I was a kid." Karin raised an eyebrow, and Sakura continued.

"Sasuke was really popular when we were young, the girls would always fight over him, we would do anything to make him like us." She seemed to be thinking staring at the ceiling, "I think it was less about him, and more about us trying to prove we were better than each other. At least, that's what I think now."

"Wow, don't tell Sasuke that. Nobody actually liked him?" Her laugh was mocking, but not _exactly_ cruel.

"Maybe he deserves a blow to his self esteem." Sakura bit, but felt guilty almost immediately. "Well, perhaps not _anymore_."

He was probably very aware already that almost nobody in Konoha had anything but scathing opinions of him now.

Karin chuckled, face flat on the counter now, hand loosely clutching the very near to empty bottle.

"Maybe it's weird, but people _always_ say I'm weird anyway. I just want him to be happy, you know?" She was mumbling now, like after her fit of energy she was just going to pass out now, there on the counter.

Sakura did get it, at least she think she does. She smiles softly, standing and looping her arm around Karin to guide her to the sofa.

And for the record, she did think Karin was weird, but mostly for showing up out of nowhere to get drunk and fall asleep at a not-friend's house. But maybe they could be friends, after all.

Sitting on the floor next to the couch, she wrapped her arms around her legs and dug her toes into the soft, fluffy rug. She felt a little empty now  without Karin's banter. She'd never admitted how she felt, or didn't feel about Sasuke to anyone yet, and wondered why she'd said that to Karin.

If she wasn't in love with Sasuke, did she know was love was, or how to see it?

Karin was snoring now, loudly.

Sakura fell asleep there, thinking she was really pretty anyway.

**Author's Note:**

> I like Karin, but I wonder if I write her well at all! Who knows.
> 
> I was tempted to put in some deeper pondering on about Sakura's feelings of misplacement with N&S but I couldn't fit it in quite right, and figured it would be better saved for something else I'd like to write with Sai.


End file.
